Eight of Pentacles

The Eight of Pentacles as depicted in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck

The Eight of Pentacles is the eighth card in the suit of Pentacles. It usually stands for work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, or skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage. If indicating a person, it will be a young man, or a dark girl.

General description

In the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, Pamela Coleman Smith depicts the Eight of Pentacles as an artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies. A.E. Waite connects this image with that found on the Three of Pentacles, and suggests they are the same artist in different phases of their career. The illustration of the card is to be taken more as a warning against the dangers of this house than as a direct descriptive image of its nature; as a sort of hint: keep to your work, do not let yourself be led astray or misguided.

Divinatory meaning

This card presents skill and bravery, far above the average, outdoing the commonplace, sinning against tradition but widening the views and outlook. Dexterity will ensue from it. In matters of the heart it always tends to the unusual, superhuman, exotic, wayward, strange or dreamy. That ambitions are wrecked in this house is correct in general, still the pentacles are never strong in any evil sense, and they are apt to wreck fortunes or bubble reputations rather than ambitions.

If reversed, the card can mean: Voided ambition, vanity. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.